ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER HEADACHE FOR THE IRS. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration is getting ready to start another investigation into IRS targeting of conservative groups. This time they're looking into claims that Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell was unfairly scrutinized. Rachael Bade reports that TIGTA will be interviewing O'Donnell "soon" to determine if there was any wrongdoing associated with her failed 2010 Senate campaign. The full story: http://politi.co/1aCjvTy

COUNTDOWN TO THE BLANK SLATE DEADLINE. Senators have until the end of this week to explain to the folks at the Senate Finance Committee which tax breaks should be saved from the blank slate. Business lobbyists will be working overtime to make sure that someone speaks up in favor of tax breaks for business expensing. I've got a primer on the ins and outs of the capital cost recovery breaks in today's paper.

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Expensing breaks are popular benefits that allow businesses to write off significant chunks of their investment in pricey equipment. The break is often seen as a win-win, giving companies an incentive to invest and helping the firms that manufacture the equipment that’s being purchased.

But it comes with a big price tag: about $21 billion over five years. Baucus has made clear that the tax rate — which most companies hope will be slashed to about 25 percent — will go up for every pricey provision that is added back in.

And since it’s a temporary tax provision, it’s the type of break that’s most ripe to be scrapped from the tax code of the future.

BOEHNER GIVES THE TAX REFORM PITCH. House Speaker John Boehner joined the tax reform hype team during a Sunday appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We need tax reform, where we bring down the rates, we get rid of the garbage in the tax code, make it fairer for more Americans, and it'll help us with real economic growth," he said. But Boehner isn't for tax reform all on its own. He said the process needs to be paired with entitlement reform and spending cuts. The message is far from a specific push for members of the House Ways and Means Committee to get a bill to the House floor. Boehner has been willing to offer idea for the general idea of rewriting the tax code but continues to keep his hands out of the specifics.

HAPPY MONDAY MORNING. Welcome to the working week. Morning Tax is coming to you from sunny Chicago this morning. Lauren will be back on Tuesday but feel free to email me at : ksnell@politico.com. Or tweet me at @ Kelsey_Snell. As always, please follow @ POLITICOPro.

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WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO TAXES IN DETROIT. Detroit residents want to know how the city's pending bankruptcy will affect their tax bills. The answer appears to be, not at all. The Detroit Free Press asked the city's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to clarify just what will happen to the already high property taxes in the city. "We have no plans to increase property tax in the city," Orr said. "We are hoping to grow the city and provide services that will actually increase the value of the property in the city so we will have a better living environment for the city and residents and make it more attractive for people to move into the city." Check out a video of his answer here: http://on.freep.com/17w77Ta

DID YOU KNOW? The Apollo 11 astronauts had to go through customs when they came back to earth. Several years ago NASA confirmed that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins had to fill out customs form declaring the moon rocks, moon dust and lunar samples that they brought back into the country. You can view the forms here: http://bit.ly/13vGi1p

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** A message from the American Forest Foundation: One in four rural Americans is a family forest owner. Collectively, these 21 million families and individuals care for more forests than the government or corporations, providing Americans with clean water, wildlife habitat, rural jobs and more.

Owning forestland is much like a small business or farm. Landowners have annual expenses and make investments to keep their land healthy. They also take on incredible risk, such as wildfire, insects, disease, hurricanes and more. Yet most will not see income from their trees but once a generation. Learn how the tax code can make or break a landowners’ ability to keep their land in trees and keep it productive. goo.gl/wYoqbU. **